Russia Tensions Move Closer to Home

Russia’s increasingly assertive – and some say militaristic – foreign policy hit a little closer to home recently. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that the Russian military would soon be conducting bomber patrols worldwide, including in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico – the United States’ proverbial backyard. “In the current situation we have to maintain military presence in the Western Atlantic and Eastern Pacific as well as the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico,” said Shoigu, apparently in response to accusations from NATO officials that Russian troops are heading into Ukraine.

Shoigu reportedly added that the flights would be “reconnaissance missions to monitor foreign powers’ military activities and maritime communications,” presumably referring to the U.S.

If Shoigu’s announced plans were to materialize, the Russian flights would constitute the most significant Russian international military escalation since the Cold War. By some standards, bomber sorties in the Gulf of Mexico would surpass even Cold War-era tensions, as Russian forces reportedly did not routinely patrol North America’s southern flank. “Such a policy is highly reminiscent of Soviet military activity during the Cold War,” says Laura Linderman, a research fellow with the Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council. “This is a calculated escalation by Moscow to see just how far they can push the U.S.”

Shoigu’s comments come amid a major increase in Russian airborne “probing” missions in the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Mediterranean and throughout European airspace. However, those flights were largely launched from Russia itself. Even occasional missions skirting U.S. airspace near Alaska or California can be launched from Russian bases. Flying patrols to the Gulf of Mexico, to say nothing of the further-flung Caribbean, would require a constellation of refueling and maintenance facilities throughout the region to support aircraft making the approximately 5,500-mile journey from Russia’s frozen East to the balmy Gulf.